Season opener to showcase Topeka Symphony musicians

Concert also marks start of Kyle Wiley Pickett's tenure as conductor

Kyle Wiley Pickett, shown conducting a rehearsal of the Topeka Symphony Orchestra for his tryout concert, will begin his tenure as music director with the 2013-14 season opener at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in White Concert Hall.

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To mark the start of his tenure with the Topeka Symphony, music director Kyle Wiley Pickett wanted a program that would showcase the orchestra.

“We don’t have a soloist on this concert because we’re really highlighting the new relationship between conductor and orchestra, so I needed pieces that actually treat the orchestra as a soloist in many ways,” Picket said.

He will conduct the program at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in White Concert Hall on the campus of Washburn University.

“We’re opening with Beethoven’s Seventh, which is one of the most powerful and significant Romantic symphonies,” said Pickett, who added the work also was “one of my all-time favorite pieces.”

The concert will continue with the intermezzo from Act III of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Manon Lescaut,” which Pickett called “a lush, gorgeous, beautiful piece.” He also described it as a “short but kind of astonishing pretty music.” Principal cello and viola are featured on solo passages.

However, it is the concert closer, Ottorino Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome,” which will really let the orchestra show off.

Pickett called “The Pines” a “virtuoso orchestra showpiece.”

“It’s about showing off the technical prowess of the orchestra,” said Pickett, adding the piece has solos throughout it, including trumpet, clarinet, piano, strings and brass.

“It really showcases the players,” in addition to being an audience-pleaser, Pickett said.

“It should be a spectacular concert, a spectacular opening,” he said.

Following the resignation of John Wesley Strickler at the end of the

2011-12 season, the symphony conducted a national search for a successor with Pickett selected as one of five finalists. Each of them conducted a tryout concert last season. Pickett was the candidate favored by symphony musicians, patrons and the search committee.

In addition to starting his career as only the fourth music director in the Topeka Symphony’s 67-year history, Pickett is the new conductor of the Springfield (Mo.) Symphony Orchestra. He also is wrapping up his positions as music director of the North State Symphony in California and the Juneau Symphony in the Alaska

capital.

To accommodate the concert schedule of all four orchestras, guest conductors will lead some of the other cities’ programs, but Pickett will conduct all seven Topeka Symphony Orchestra concerts, season tickets to which are available. Subscriptions for three to seven concerts start at $63.

New subscribers who purchase at least three concerts receive 50 percent off the regular subscription price, and a flex pass, good for any combination of four admissions, is available for $118. Single tickets are $34, $29 and $24, half-off for students.

Pickett will discuss the music of the season opener at a “Concert Conversation,” free to ticket-holders, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center, across the street from White Concert Hall. Tickets can be purchased at the door or by calling 232-2032.